They are, I think, the most haunting words in the 'Form of Prayer with Thanksgiving to be used yearly upon the Fifth Day of November'. They potently remind us what could have been lost, "thy church among us": in other words, that distinctive pattern and shape which the Reformed tradition took in the ecclesia Anglicana.
If the Gunpowder Treason had been successful, it is this which could have been ruined and - to use words from the opening of Hooker's Lawes - "to passe away as in a dreame".
No grand, exalted claims need to be made for what would later be known as Anglicanism in order for us to be grateful for the failure of the Gunpowder conspirators. It would not have been the ruin of the Church Catholic. It would not have been the ruin of the Churches of the Reformation.
It would have been "the ruin of thy church among us".
The church characterised by the modest, reverent piety of the Prayer Book; "the author of peace and lover of concord" at Mattins; "take this holy Sacrament to your comfort" at Communion; "Lighten our darkness, we beseech thee, O Lord" at Evensong; the eirenic moderation of Richard Hooker, calling us back from immodest, grand claims.
And it is to words from Hooker that I turn on this eve of the Fifth of November. Words which remind us that no immodest, exalted, grand claims need to be made for Anglicanism at this commemoration. No, merely that "thy church among us" has been a good and godly way for us "with meek heart and due reverence" to "hear and receive thy holy Word", that we might serve "thee in holiness and righteousness" all our days.
From Hooker's Sermon I on the Epistle of Saint Jude, a reminder of what could have passed away, "as in a dreame":
For, beloved in Christ, we bow our knees, and lift up our hands to Heaven in our chambers secretly, and openly in our Churches we pray heartily and hourly, even for them also: though the Pope have given out, as a Judge, in a solemn declaratory sentence of Excommunication against this Land, that our gracious Lady hath quite abolished Prayers within her Realm; and his Scholars, whom he hath taken from the midst of us, have in their published writings charged us, not only not to have any Holy Assemblies unto the Lord for Prayer, but to hold a common School of sin and flattery; to hold sacrilege to be God's service; unfaithfulness and breach of promise to God, to give it to a strumpet, to be a virtue; to abandon Fasting; to abhor Confession; to mislike with Penance; to like well of usury; to charge none with restitution; to find no good before God in single life, nor in no well-working; that all men, as they fall to us, are much worsed, and more than afore, corrupted. I do not add one word or syllable unto that which Master Bristow, a man both born and sworn amongst us, hath taught his hand to deliver to the view of all. I appeal to the conscience of every soul, that hath been truly converted by us, whether his heart were never raised up to God by our preaching; whether the words of our exhortation never wrung any tear of a penitent heart from his eyes; whether his soul never reaped any joy and comfort, and consolation in Christ Jesus by our Sacraments, and Prayers, and Psalms, and Thanksgivings; whether he were never bettered, but always worsed by us.
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